Ads on Podcasts (not embedded, not dynamic?)

[_cuyx-b0fxvy7]

On two podcasts I tried this morning, I was hit with ads. Not in the middle of the podcast. Before it. Three of them each. I seriously doubt the 10 Hours Mountain Lake Waves podcast cares about my local ballot measures enough to embed such a thing or make it dynamic or whatever.

I have individual premium. I pay not to hear ads. Why am I hearing ads?

[Maxim]

Hey @_cuyx-b0fxvy7,

Thanks for reaching out to the Community.

Spotify advertises that Premium allows users to enjoy ad-free music listening, which is one of its key benefits (as mentioned here). However, it’s worth noting that podcasts, whether you’re on Free or Premium, may still include ads. These can range from host-read endorsements and sponsorships to audio ads within the podcast itself.

Some podcasts also use a feature that dynamically inserts ads into the stream. This is managed by the podcast publishers, giving them more flexibility to add value to their content on Spotify.

It’s understandable that this can cause some confusion since Premium removes ads from music but doesn’t extend to podcasts. I hope this clears things up a bit regarding what’s included with Premium and why you may hear ads in podcasts.

Feedback from users is incredibly valuable, and Spotify is always working to improve transparency and provide more clarity about these features.

Let me know if you have any other questions 🙂

[_cuyx-b0fxvy7]

This didn't answer my question. I specifically stated that these ads are not embedded, nor are they "dynamic".

[Maxim]

Hey @_cuyx-b0fxvy7,

Thanks for getting back.

Feel free to share a specific example of an ad then 🙂 Keep in mind that ads can also appear before and after a podcast, not just in the middle.

[Lucca7]

Shouldn’t podcasts with embedded ads disclose this upfront to enable users to choose whether or not they want to listen…

[soif]

I have the same issue as OP. So here are some examples. I mainly listen to american podcasts. Last time it was wine about it that suddenly gave me irish ads, becasue I just came back from ireland. They always have podcast in their episodes but they are american and always do the ads themseleves. Normally the ads are DURING an episode. The mistery ads are before an episode and on the screen the podcast seems to stay at 0:00 but there is no ad window or anything. The next example is Smosh reads reddit stories. They are also american but I got swiss ads in a very british accent lol. (I'm currently in switzerland). So no these ads are not from these podcasts themselves. I've been listening to them enough to diffrence the ads the play. Also all my podcasts are american but they play ads for my location.